Jennifer Greene - Irresistible Stranger

Lily figured she’d never escape here until 2014-maybe-but as much as the older lady talked, she moved just as fast. Before much time passed, they were both sitting on a horsehair sofa, a lazy fan whirling overhead, and three high school year books opened on the crowded coffee table in front of them. Susannah had asked the year when her parents died, and picked that year and the two earlier ones to “peruse,” as she put it.

“I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for,” Lily admitted. “I’ve picked up all kinds of new information, but nothing that pulls it all together.”

“You want a ‘bottom line,’ as you young people like to say.” Susannah licked her thumb, started peeling through pages. “You want proof your father didn’t set the fire.”

“Yes.”

“And the proof would be if you found who did set that fire. You think someone in this age bracket set the other troublesome fires. The arson stories that were in the paper.”

“Exactly. The person was never found, but all the evidence points to someone of high school age. A girl.”

“Well, that only narrows it down by half,” Susannah said wryly. “I think we need a glass of sherry, don’t you?”

Personally, Lily was no fan of sweet wines, but she couldn’t turn down the older woman. Susannah was having a great time. She produced wineglasses “from a pawn shop in Reno.”

“Real Irish crystal. Not that I’m a snob about such things. Oh, my…”

Lily scanned face after face, feeling increasingly foolish. She didn’t know anyone, couldn’t make any connection. But Susannah could, on every page.

“Oh, my heavens. Margo-you’ve met her, haven’t you, the insurance agent? She had two nieces in high school, one after the other, both of them brighter than sunshine. The one made it all the way to her Ph.D., but sorry to say, the youngest got herself in the family way…never married, I hear…

“And there’s Larry Wilson. Oh, what a heartthrob he was to the girls, every father’s nightmare…Cashner Warden, I know you know him, the fire chief, he graduated a year ahead. He was another heartthrob back then, believe it or not. Quarterback of the football team. They lost every game. They were that bad. But he still looked good in that uniform, and there was always talk of the girls he was getting in trouble…oh my, oh my…”

Susannah clutched her chest with one hand-and reached over for the decanter of sherry with the other. Poured both of them another glass. “I’d forgotten. Our Herman Conner had five kids, you know, but there was one pair of twins, girls. He lost the one to a car accident when she was around fifteen. The whole family went to pieces, but especially her twin. Mary Belle ran around like a wild thing…you recognize her, don’t you?”

“I do.” The hairdresser with the wild, red hair.

“Well, the scandals about the girl near broke Herman’s heart, but you know how it is. Some have to make mistakes their own way. She’s turned into a good mama. Still hasn’t got a lick of sense for men. But I think she still misses her sister, that something’s always been missing for her…and oh, my, you know Debbie of Debbie’s Diner? Well, her older brother…”

Lily sat straight.

She smelled it first. Just the barest whiff of smoke.

Followed by the distant scream of a fire truck engine.

“Oh my. Oh my.” Susannah grabbed a chair arm and pushed to her feet. “I’m afraid that’s close.”

So was Lily. She shot out the door, leaving her purse, her papers, everything. Before she could fly down the steps of the veranda, the only sound in her head was a fierce, angry no.

She knew it was Louella’s.

The bed and breakfast was the only other place in town where Lily had been that hadn’t been targeted. But she thought, no one would do that to darling Louella. To that beautiful old house. Why? Why?

A car honked-she crossed the street without looking, running like a gazelle, seeing neighbors step outside, crossing arms, worried about what was happening, kids being called to come in from playing. Lily just kept charging ahead.

It wasn’t the whole house. It was just one window where clouds of thick, blustery smoke was starting to rumble out. Her window. The room she stayed in. Another measure she was to blame for this somehow, involved in this somehow, but if Louella was hurt, she’d never forgive herself.

She could hear the fire truck siren joined by police sirens, but neither rescue vehicle was in sight yet. A new boarder was standing on the front lawn when Lily leaped up the porch steps and slammed inside, calling Louella’s name, not seeing her anywhere downstairs.

She took the stairs up two at a time, feeling the buildup of heat, her lungs whining at the choke of smoke. She found Louella in the hall, holding a handkerchief to her nose with one hand, trying to maneuver a heavy, unwieldy fire extinguisher with the other.

“Go!” Lily yelled at her.

Louella shook her head. “I’m not leaving my house!”

“I’ll do it, Louella!” She grabbed the extinguisher, hefted it, pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle full bore. “If you have another extinguisher, get it. Or see if the neighbors have some.”

“I-”

“I won’t leave your fire until the firemen get here, I promise, Louella. But you go. Outside. Don’t breathe this-” It was way too much talking. Both of them were starting to cough heavily, Louella bent over as she aimed for the stairs.

Lily turned back toward the bedroom, her eyes tearing in the rage of smoke-but she’d found the source. The wastebasket in her room was heaped with rags, reeked of gasoline. Fire danced up the lace curtains, shooting out the windows in scraps of seared lace and fabric. The white bedspread had caught a hem of fire now.

The extinguisher spewed foam, a white mousse that was almost as stinky as the fire. Lily kept aiming and shooting, her arms aching, screaming from holding the weight of the extinguisher.

“Lily!” Behind her, Louella had brought up another extinguisher. Lily took the fresh one, pulled the pin, let it rip.

“Go! Get out of the building!” she ordered the older woman.

“I am, I am. But the fire trucks. They just got here. So you can leave, too.”

“I will! I will!” Yet she couldn’t seem to desert the ship. She hadn’t caused this, but she still felt responsible. The things burning up in front of her eyes-her yellow shorts, her cosmetic bag, her white sandals with the cork heels-they were already smoked and soaked and destroyed. But it hurt, sharp as a wound, that it was her stuff, her room that had been targeted.

The heat built. The smell and smoke increasingly choked her. She couldn’t seem to get ahead of it. The bed pillow poofed, puffed, then came alive with fire, turning into a shower of sparks. The fire jumped, kept jumping. She put out curtains; then the lace scarf on the bureau sparked fresh. The old wallpaper on the far wall turned wet, shiny, started peeling.

The air seemed alive with moving, burning bits of debris. Clouds and wings of burning ash drifted in the air. Something tiny and sharp fell in her hair.

The burn was sharp and sudden. Instinctively, she dropped the extinguisher, batted at the pain in her head. Fear caught her like the sting of a whip. All these years she’d thought of fire as loss, as grief. Not as…personal. Not as something alive and lashing out. She spun, confused, choking, her palms stinging, her eyes blinded…

“Lily!”

Maybe she heard the fast thump of firemen’s boots, the noise of voices. But the only thing she spun around for was the sound of Griff, calling her name. She stumbled.

He caught her with a strong, sure grip. And with all the finesse of a tender lover, tossed a cold, soaking wet towel over her head.